Pavement Artists
by paradiseofgold
Summary: If you think faith is cruel, then you have not met the people at Central Intelligence Agency —CIA for short. I'm sure you've heard of them multiple times, but you probably don't know a lot about them. Don't worry, neither do I.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I am not Ally Carter nor will I ever be. This is a work of fanfiction that contains characters she has created and owns.

If you think faith is cruel, then you have not met the Central Intelligence Agency —CIA for short. I'm sure you've heard of them multiple times, but you probably don't know a lot about them. Don't worry, neither do I.

I'm Cameron Anne Morgan, you can call me 'Cammie' just because 'Cameron' sounds too serious, and I'm a CIA spy (soon to be ex-spy) along with my boyfriend and five other close friends. Right now, those five friends of mine are scattered all over the world doing what spies do, but not my boyfriend, Zachary Goode.

Zachary took it upon himself to give me 'support' when I needed it least on this unfateful night. He probably didn't think that I'm going to do this right and end up dead, he's probably right —at least in one way. I'm going to be able to do this mission right, it's just the fact that I might not come back after this mission. I'll still be alive, of course.

You see, I have this special talent, if you will, of blending in with civilians out there. Hence the codename 'Chameleon.' The CIA took notice of this talent and thinks that it can be enhanced, refined, be put to better use. So they made me an offer, they'll send me to another branch of their agency that focuses on the talent in question, the only catch is that I'll have to leave everything behind without telling anyone. And could I refuse? No, of course not.

I am in no position to say no to the CIA, to them I am only a mere spy. A spy who could be easily replaced in a snap. I could only accept their offer, much to my chagrin.

That's how I ended up here, on a black, spy plane with Zach, our hands linked together and a comfortable silence blanketing us. I want to say so many things, simple things that matter to me; like how I love when his emerald eyes shine in a way I only see when he comes home after a mission, but I won't be able to. Not then, not now, not ever, it's simply a fact of life that I had long understood.

"Cammie, are you okay? Your pulse is...so fast. Too fast." Zach points out, his eyes filled with concern. Oh, how I'll miss those eyes of his.

"I'm okay," I assure him falsely, I'm anything but _okay_, "just a bit nervous."

"Calm yourself then, you don't want to be a bundle of nerves when you get down there. It won't be any help," he says sharply, had I been any other person I would have found the act rude and offensive, but I don't; in my two year relationship with Zach I had come to realise that he isn't the smoothest person out there when it comes to voicing out his affections. It's kind of cute, really.  
"Oh, have some faith in me will you? Why don't you try saying more encouraging words like...'Cammie, I'm sure you'll do a great job out there, don't be too worried!'" I say tease playfully, but my heart couldn't help aching in sadness because I did really want him to say encouraging words to me, but I know he won't.

"I do have faith in you, I'm just worried that...something will happen to you. What if you don't get out of there alive, Cammie? What if I never see you again? Joe and you are my only connection to the world —the good world— and if you're not there...Jesus, Cammie, just stay alive will you? For me? For Bex, Macey, Liz, Jonas and Grant?"

The air inside me rushes out all at once and my lungs tighten, constricting airflow, at Zach's words. That's when it hits me. It hits me like a hard slap on the face.

I'm about to leave Zach, Bex, Macey, Liz, Jonas, Grant, Mum and so many other people that matter to me, without telling them. They'll end up thinking I'm dead, holy shit. They'll think that I've ended up like my dad; MIA. No, no. Why didn't I think this through? Why am I only realising this now? I could've left a letter to one of them or something. God, I am so stupid.

I turn his body by his shoulders, and tilt my chins upwards a bit so that we were looking eyes to eyes, "I promise to never leave you Zach. I'll stay with you always, here," I put my hand on the left part of his chest, where I can feel his heart pounding as hard as mine beneath my palms, "like the way my dad stays in my heart. If I...if I die tonight...or if you never see me again —MIA or KIA— I want you to realise that you will never lose me nor will you lose your connection to the good world. You have friends as good as mine; Jonas and Grant, and do you think the three girls won't help you? Because they will, they all will." I smile warmly, barely keeping the tear at bay. There, I said it. My goodbyes. That's it.

"Thank you Cammie, for everything," he says before meeting his lips with mine.

I pull away as I see the green light flash on the wall, indicating that we have reached our destination. "I need to jump now, Zach." I say as I quickly check that my weapons are all secure and that my chute is attached.

I slide the door open and the cool night air instantly fills in the whole plane, I give Zach one last look and mouth the words '_I love you'_before jumping off.

It's a parting well made.

A/N: You have just read a more refined version of Pavement Artists . I didn't plan on re-writing the story this soon, but something on the back of my mind kept nagging me and i just had to write it. I'm storing it in my google account, just so it doesn't get lost and can be restored when deleted.

As you can all see, this chapter was completely different from the first version of Pavement Artists (the really crap one) and that's because I really want to take the story seriously from now on. So I'm going to try my best to give you all higher quality chapters compared from last time.

Thanks for reading.  
YsMay


	2. Chapter 2

**There's a very important question at the bottom of the chapter, I would appreciate it if you took time and answered it.**

_Disclaimer: I'm not Ally Carter, I'm only a fan. _

* * *

I always knew I'm going to lose Cammie, one way or another, but I never knew it was going to be this soon.

"Zach. Zach, I just lost my connection with Cammie!" Jonas says the words loud and clear into my earpiece, and I wanted to start panicking, but if there's one thing being a spy taught me it's not to panic in the worst scenario because it won't get you anywhere.

"Open the back-up power then. That should give you back the connection." My voice is calm, too calm, it almost sounds alien to me. My brain starts to analyse everything; it's two minutes and seventeen seconds after Cammie jumped the plane, if everything is right then she should be in the building right now.

"Jonas, stop what you're doing. Track Cammie first, then we'll see where she is."

"Yeah, okay," he replied, his tone full of doubts and I could understand. I really could because I too don't know what's happening and I don't like that —spies don't like that. We like to have control, and right now we have everything but control.

I hear a series of typing and clicking before Jonas replied again, "Zach, I can't track her. I can't find her. The devices can't find her."

My blood runs cold and I lose it, "What do you mean you can't find her? Of course you can! You're the controller of her tracking and communication devices right! You're the one in control!"

"You're right, Zach. But I can't control anything, unless the thing is turned on. Tell me, did Cammie have a working tracker and earpiece before she jumped off?"

Shit. Did she? Oh God.

"I don't know."

"Well, Zach, I'm sorry, but I can't do anything from two hundred miles away, nor can you. We can do nothing about it, but report it to the higher officials."

"Not Cammie's mum. Understand?"

"Why not?"

"Do you really want to have this conversation right now? With two devices that other spies can listen to? Do you?"

"No. You're right. I'll wait for you to get back. I'll call in the girls and Grant, too. They can help."

I doubt it. I doubt they can help. No one can help.

"Yeah. Sure, maybe they can."

Cammie's out there, in the dark night, doing a mission that could cost her own life without getting any help from any of us. It's going to take some fucking miracle for her to get back to us in one piece.

"Zach, we'll find her, yeah? Have some trust in us."

That's what Cammie did, trusted the agency with her damn life and look where that got her.

Sometimes I wonder if things would've been different had I been a spy, would I still have met Cammie? And if I did, would my memory of her be wiped out by some cup of tea? And if it wasn't, would I be in this position right now?

Maybe. Maybe not. But now, is not really the time for questions.

I just need to find Cammie. And quick.

* * *

A/N: The chapter might be short, but it will be significant. You'll find that this chapter will, more or less, contain a lot of important information that will be valuable later in the story. But, yes, it is a little bit shorter and that's just because I wanted to partly fill in the readers (yes, you) on what happened after Cammie jumped off the plane, so there's no confusion.

You'll notice that I had a sentence in bold **(like this) **at the very very start of the chapter, I congratulate you if noticed that. You're a very good observer.  
I don't want to make this too long, so I'll cut to the chase now. **(Please carefully read the next two paragraphs.)**

I'm really concerned about which way I should go with Bex and Zach's relationship. I did two versions of it, early on, and the first one had them as just friends and nothing more while the other one was off the border a bit and had them as a couple. Now, I'm asking this question to you, person from the other screen, would you like them to be friends in this story or a couple?

On my profile I have a poll on this question and I would love to see your vote. Just to let you know, it is a blind poll, meaning that you cannot see what others have voted until the poll has been closed to avoid bias voting. Also, just because the majority of readers wants them to be friends (or a couple), doesn't necessarily mean that I will be taking that road too. For now, I won't assure you of anything about Zach and Cammie's relationship, but don't let it affect your vote. For all you know, I'll make it a Grant/Cammie (Grammie! *giggles*) story. Or I can break up Bex and Zach (if they were a couple). There's just too many possibilities out there, so make sure you VOTE HONESTLY.

**The poll will be closed as soon as I feel like I've got enough feedback**, and if I were you I'd vote as soon as I reading this!

Bye.  
YsMay.

Edit: I did a slip-up and published this on the wrong story. Shit. I'm so stupid. Sorry, folks!


	3. Chapter 3

_Disclaimer: You know the drill, peeps._

* * *

_Why is there no one here?_I ask myself, it had been more than five minutes since I landed on top of the two-storey building in pitch black, and I have yet to see another person other than me on this rooftop.

_What if there no one else is supposed to be here, huh, Cameron? What if you got your calculations wrong and landed on the wrong building? _The questions my brain kept throwing at me made me panic both inside and out. I could feel my heartbeat spiking up with each passing minute, my breath is following suit, my palms are sweating, and within another five minutes I feel like I've just ran a marathon.

I had never in a million years felt so helpless before as I stand here on top of a rooftop the bitter winds of the winter slapping me on the face, my sense of sight robbed by the pitch black of the night, and the faint smell of rust from, what I guessed would be aged metal railings guarding the edge of the rooftop, for company. I am helpless, indeed.

Had this been any other mission, I would have simply talked with my controller and tell him to guide me along. But, of course, this was no other mission, I'm not even sure if it's a mission because really all I don't even know what is really going on.

Then I feel it. At first, I regard of it as the cold wind hitting the back of my neck, but then the feeling doesn't go away. It stays, and it gets stronger until I could feel goosebumps rising.

"Good evening, Agent Morgan. Or should I say 'good morning'?" The figure in the dark from behind me finally says. His voice is deep, but it had a less-serious tone in it, I was less intimidated.

I turned around just as he stepped out of the shadows, his white suit seemed to glow against the black background. _Okay, maybe I spoke a little bit too soon,_I gulp as he closes the short distance between leaving only a metre gap between him and me. I couldn't help but notice how broad his shoulders were, how bouncer-like looking he was, and how his shirt looked like they are about to burst at any given moment from his size.

"Good evening, to you too, sir." I reply politely, pleased that my tone is smooth and calm.

"Not an optimist then, I take it?" He raises one eyebrow in a playful manner.

I shake my head. "Not a pessimist either, something in-between."

"Aren't we all? C'mon inside. You'll fit right in, Morgan."

"We? And you can call me Cammie, everyone else does."

"Everything will be explained inside, Morgan," he replies, clearly not interested in calling me other than Morgan.

"Okay, but how?" There is nothing on the rooftop, but the gravel underneath our shoes. Come to think of it...how did this man even get here?

"How do we get inside? Well...it's a surprise," he says with a sly smile and gave me a wink before he started walking towards one corner of the rooftop, I followed suit without another question.

"Tell me, are you scared of elevators?" he asks, but before I could even reply a glass capsule has already caged us and instantly shot downwards in speeds that could give light a run for its money.

"Please identify yourselves." A robotic female voice spoke as the elevator started coming to a much slower descent.

"Apollo Doschiol. Commanding Officer of Pavement Artist Training Centre." Apollo says flatly, as if he's done this million of times before, he probably has. I wonder if he's my boss, but then I realise that he was the one who escorted me...he's probably not my boss, I concluded.

"Voice recognition complete." The robotic female voice responds, and I took this as a cue for me to start speaking.

"Cameron Ann Morgan." I pause as I rack my brain for titles I could claim for myself and only one word came up: spy. "Spy." I finished and looked up at Apollo, in hopes that I did this right, but he's only looking straight ahead as if he is having a staring competition with his reflection on the glass.

"Voice recognition complete." The robot voice says once again, and I instantly feel relieved that I did it right.

Well done Cammie, I think and mentally give myself a pat on the back.

"Floor level?" Robotic voice asked once more.

"Highest Office." I hear Apollo reply beside me and before I knew it, the thing is shooting downwards again. I know it sounds weird, but if you were standing here, next to me, then you would feel it going down too, and not going upwards like Apollo had said. Maybe there's a malfunction in the system? Or maybe there's a malfunction in my brain? Either way, we're still heading downwards.

As soon as the elevator came to halt, Apollo had lead me away to the only metal doors in the small room. He opened the door for me, but did not follow. "I can't go any further than this, Morgan. See you later," was all he said before walking back into the elevator.

I stood there minutes after he left, eyeing the door warily, before I reluctantly walked in.

The room on the inside is much like the outside; with floor and walls made out of steel, the only exception to this is that the room inside has a simple black table sandwiched in between two office black chairs. One of the chairs, I notice, is occupied.

"Hello?" I ask tentatively, coming to a halt ten feet away from the nearest chair. And for a moment, I think I'm hallucinating; no one appears to be sitting on the chair, I am alone, but then a voice speaks.

"Hello, Agent Morgan." The chair rotates as the man speaks, revealing his identity. My spy instincts instantly pounces on him starts analyzing. I estimate that he is in his early forties, dark brown hair and eyes. He looks like just another pedestrian in the street that you would look at once, and not twice. But I realise he's far too special to be 'just another pedestrian' that you would only lay eyes on once, there's something about him that will make you look twice, thrice and possibly make you stare.

"I got it from a mission in Costa Rica," he explains as I continue to stare at the scar across his face, "some idiot thought I was the enemy and slashed my face using a knife."

My initial reply is to say 'I'm sorry that happened to you, sir,' but it didn't feel like an appropriate answer. The person in front of me is an important man, that much I gathered, and to give him my pity would equals to stupidity, that much I realise. So I keep quiet, after all isn't silence the best answer?

A small smile slowly creeps up on his face, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

I gulp, "No, sir."  
"Take a seat, Cameron," he gestures his hand to the chair in front of him and I do so obligingly.

"I'll tell you something, no one has ever walked through those doors, stare at my scar and don't say anything about it. I don't know what to think of it, really. But let's focus on the matter at hand, why are you here?"

The question takes me by surprise, "I...I don't know, sir. I just got this call one day and they said I had to leave everything behind and...and that I needed to jump off a plane under a pretense of doing a mission and land on the building's rooftop."

"And by everything behind, you mean?" His tone is menacing, trying to push me to my edge as much as he could.

"By everything, I mean; my life, my family, my future...everything." I finish lamely, fighting the tears back as I remember what I said to Zach. I promised I wouldn't leave him and look where that got me, no more than an hour after I made that promise.

He raises one eyebrow, "We can't have tears here, Cameron. People from your agency told us —told me— that you're best asset is how strong and calm you remain in the worst of times, but right now all I'm seeing is a weak and pathetic girl who clings to her life far too tight. You, of all people, Cameron should know, by now, that we, spies, have no control on our lives whatsoever. We are mere puppets in their play. Your dad was incredibly brave to defy their laws, perhaps that's why he got killed."

I wanted to stand up to him, to tell him that he was wrong, that he knew nothing about my dad, but I know better. He's just trying to provoke me, trying to get a reaction out of me and that's what I'm exactly not going to do.

"Listen to me, I won't repeat any of this ever again. You, Cameron Ann Morgan, has been nominated to be in one of the world's most elite group of Pavement Artists. Ten of you have been nominated from all over the world, and every single one of you have exactly twenty-one days, starting tomorrow, to start training and prove to me that you are worthy of the spot. There are only five spots in the group, and believe me when I say that those spots can cost you a lot."

"Five spots? What happens when I don't get in the spot?"

"You get brain-washed. You will not remember anything of being a spy."

I gulped, "Have a good night sleep, Cameron. Apollo's just outside. He'll brief you on everything else you need to know."

"Y-yes, sir." I say, my body letting everything sink-in on what he had just told me. My knees are wobbly and it takes awhile for me to start walking properly again, and even then my brain still feels like it's about to explode from all the overwhelming information.

As I'm about to reach the door, the man's voice stops me, "Oh and Cameron, I'm Jonathan Soliani. That's Mr. J, to you."

* * *

A/N: Please, please VOTE IN THE POLL on my profile. I'm going to be showing Bex and Zach in the next chapter and I still haven't decided on anything, so PLEASE help me. I would love some reviews too! :)

Hope you enjoyed the long chapter.  
YsMay


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